Chapters in Our Life
by Cumberbatch Critter
Summary: Family is all you have in the end. Godfather!lock, told in Sherlock's POV in taking care of John's daughter, straight from the birth and onwards. Think Archie - but with John and Mary's daughter. Multi!chap.
1. Newborn

**Chapters in Our Life**

"John!"

"I'm right here, love."

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock pressed his back against the wall firmly, shoulder blades aching from sitting and leaning against the wall for the better part of sixteen hours. He looked warily up at Mary's face. "I'm fine."

"I wasn't asking if you were fine, clot-head!"

Sherlock winced slightly. "What do you want?"

"Mrs Watson, I'm going to need you to push, alright?"

"Give me your hand!"

"What?"

_"Sherlock!"_

Sherlock pushed away from the wall and gripped Mary's free hand firmly. She was sweating and the pressure she was able to exert on his fingers made him re-think her physical strength. "I fail to see how this is going to help," he muttered.

"Shut _up_!"

* * *

Sherlock peered over the top of his phone towards Mary and John. He was trying not to be interested, but John had explicitly given him orders not to leave, and the most interesting thing _in_ the hospital room _was_ the Watson's newborn daughter.

John met his gaze and Sherlock dropped his eyes, thoroughly caught.

John laughed softly. "You don't have to admire from afar, Sherlock. You can come see her."

Sherlock glanced up again. "I think I probably shouldn't be here to begin with. Isn't this... a personal thingy or something?"

Mary smiled tiredly, looking up at him. "You're family."

Sherlock made a face. "Let's not get unduly sentimental," he muttered, slipping his mobile in his pocket and standing up. "You said you named her, er, Tiffany?" he asked, hesitantly joining the Watsons by the hospital bed.

"Yes. Little Tiffany," John cooed, brushing the pad of his thumb against the sleeping newborn's cheek. "She's the most beautiful baby in the world."

Sherlock frowned. "It's a baby. Don't they all, by design, look the same?"

"No," John murmured. He hadn't stopped smiling since Mary had delivered her. It was nice, though... because John hadn't done a lot of smiling in the past few months, so Sherlock thought it was nice to see. He wouldn't admit that, though.

"Do you want to hold her?" Mary asked, looking away from Tiffany.

Sherlock frowned. "I don't... really know how," he muttered.

John laughed again, carefully taking the baby from Mary's arms. "We found something, then?"

Sherlock glanced from the sleeping infant to John. "Found what?" he asked distractedly, his eyes invariably falling back to Tiffany.

"Something you don't know how to do," John said teasingly. "Just hold out your arms, like - no, like that. Yeah. Here." Carefully, he transferred the baby into Sherlock's arms. "Just make sure you support her head, right there in the corner of your arm, yeah."

Sherlock swallowed back a pang of irrational fear, biting the inside of his lip. He wasn't a kid person. He most certainly wasn't a baby person. They were too... fragile.

Not very good for _his_ lifestyle.

"Now that's something that I thought I'd never see."

Sherlock looked up at John.

"You," John continued. "Holding a baby. _My_ baby."

Sherlock stared for a moment before looking down at Tiffany again. "Best not say that too loud. You know how people talk."

John rolled his eyes. "And right now, they can think what they want. They're not going to ruin this," he murmured.

Tiffany shifted in Sherlock's arms and Sherlock's heart blasted to his throat. Tiffany turned her face into Sherlock's coat and fell still, and Sherlock irritably tried to swallow back the emotion, trying to coax his heart to where it should be and the speed it should be beating.

"You don't have to look so scared," Mary said teasingly. "She's not going to bite."

Sherlock gave a non-commental noise in reply, keeping his gaze on Tiffany. He had perfect reason to be experiencing 'panic'; if he broke John's daughter, John would never forgive him.

"You'll need to get used to her, anyway. You'll be spending a lot of time with her," Mary said softly.

Sherlock looked up. "Why?"

"Don't you want to?"

"... I guess?" His gaze again went back to the baby.

"We were kind of hoping..." John started, pausing to clear his throat. "I mean... Mary and I, we... We were kind of wondering if you'd..."

"We want you to be Tiffany's godfather," Mary interrupted.

Sherlock froze, forgetting to breathe in the moment where the words filtered through his eardrums and sank, echoing, into his mind palace. _Godfather_.

He looked up slowly. "... What?" His voice came out disturbingly thin and he swallowed, licking his lips.

Both of the Watsons smiled up at him. "We want you to be her godfather," John said. "If you'd... well, we just really would like you to be."

All attempts at calming his heart rate had gone out the window, Sherlock realised, feeling it pound beneath his chest and in his ears. It was just like when John had said he was his best friend. His mind went blank. Everything short-circuited. _What_ did he say to something like that?

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock sucked in a deep breath, blinking. "Why?" he asked, instead of answering the question. "Why me?"

John's eyebrows went up. "Do we have to go through what we did before my wedding again?"

Apparently John's mind had gone back to the 'best friend' conversation, too.

"But..." Sherlock said slowly. "This is different. This is... a _baby_. You can take care of yourself in being my best friend, but Tiffany's... she can't."

"We'll take care of her," John said. "Trust me. But we also trust you enough to be able to take care of her _if_ we can't." He paused. "Besides, if she ever gets tired of us when she's older... we would be... well, not happy, but you know, if she knew she could come to you."

Sherlock blinked again before looking at Mary. "You're on board with this?"

She nodded, smiling gently. "Have been since the beginning."

"Oh." Sherlock looked back at Tiffany. "Oh... okay."

"Okay? Does that mean 'yes'?" John asked.

Sherlock nodded slowly. "I... well, I don't know what I'm doing, obviously, but I'll... do some research on what godfathers do and things."

John chuckled. "Just be yourself. Nothing special."

Sherlock looked up, raising an eyebrow. "_Really_?"

"... Well, maybe not yourself," John amended.

Sherlock smiled faintly and looked back at Tiffany again. "Do my best," he mumbled, more to the baby than anyone else.

* * *

**I had meant to shove all of the godfather!lock I'm going to write for this into one chapter, and then I realised that it would be a REALLY long oneshot. So, separate chapters. Some will be very, very short, some will be longer, but they'll all be about Sherlock being Tiffany's godfather (I'm so horrible at names, so I just picked one *o*). The rating will change, or at least have a note about it as chapters progress, but I'm leaving that unspecified for the moment.**

**Stay tuned for more godfather!lock. I do not own _Sherlock_. Thank you!**


	2. Godfather

Sherlock silently unlocked the front door to the Watson's flat, letting himself in. It was approximately two-thirty in the morning. Tiffany was scheduled to wake up in approximately ten minutes. Infants did that - woke up in the middle of the night.

Sherlock knew that John had been picking up double shifts at the surgery and Mary was exhausted from the new addition to their family. Point being: they were both exhausted. So, Sherlock was taking care of Tiffany when she woke up in the middle of the night. That was what a godfather did, right?

He closed the door and locked it, slipping his coat from his shoulders. He stepped out of his shoes and quietly padded down the hall.

He stepped into Tiffany's room and closed the door, crossing the room. He muted the baby monitor, as he had been every night he visited, and put his coat on the chair.

"Hey, Tiffany," he greeted, lifting the baby out of her crib. "How's about a nappy change and a night-time snack?"

Sherlock wouldn't lie; the first time that he'd changed Tiffany's nappy had gone rather disastrous. By the time that he'd figured out how to get the thing on her, she'd wet herself all over the changing table. However, not to be deterred, he got it perfect on the second try and he'd been gold ever since.

He expertly swapped out Tiffany's nappy and slipped her back into her sleeper, cradling her in his arms as he walked across the room. He opened the door again and silently walked to the kitchen, bouncing Tiffany gently.

"Milk. Disgusting. Equally made moreso because it's come from Mary's breasts," Sherlock said conversationally, grabbing one of the bottles from the fridge.

Tiffany made a little noise - of contentedness, perhaps? - and Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Of course you would," he muttered, putting a pot on the stove to warm the milk up. "Just keep quiet. We don't want to wake-"

Light flooded the kitchen and Sherlock flinched, eyes burning from the sudden brightness.

"Turn around!"

Sherlock spun around, eyes falling on a sleepy but fierce-looking John pointing his handgun directly at him. He would have put his hands up - the look in John's eyes didn't bode well - but, well, he had a baby in his arms.

"... _Sherlock?_" John lowered the gun.

"Why are you pointing a gun at me?!" Sherlock exclaimed, voice pitching upwards. Not that his _mind_ thought that John would actually shoot him, but his body was prepared, adrenalin rushing through his veins.

"What are you doing in my house?!" John retorted. "It's... _three in the morning_! I thought you were an intruder!"

Sherlock made a face. "What, stealing Mary's breast milk?" he asked, brandishing the bottle. "Honestly, John." He turned back to the pot on the stove and poured the milk into it.

John sighed. "All I heard was noise in the kitchen. What are you _doing_, anyway?" He put on the safety on the gun and placed it on the table.

"Tiffany wakes up roughly every four hours. You go to bed around ten and get up at six. Logic states that she needs to be fed anywhere from two to three in the morning. I come here, feed and change her, and by the time you wake up, she's ready for another round. It saves you time and gets you more sleep."

John stared at him. "You've... you've been coming _here_... at two in the morning for... how long?"

"About two weeks now," Sherlock said, tilting his head.

"You've been in my house for two weeks?! How did I not notice?" John asked, sinking into a chair.

Sherlock shrugged. "I let myself in, took off my shoes to minimise sound, turned the baby monitor off and the squeaky floorboards are on the right side of your hallway 'til the second picture frame."

John just continued to stare, up to a point where _Sherlock_ was starting to feel self-conscious.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, testing the temperature of the milk before pouring it back into the bottle.

"What... why are you doing this?"

Sherlock prodded Tiffany's lips with the bottle, smiling faintly when she latched on without any complaint. "I'm her godfather," he said simply.

"Sherlock..." John laughed slightly. "You don't have to break into my flat to feed her at two in the morning. We can manage."

"_You_ are tired, I am awake anyway. It's a logical trade. I'm just surprised you haven't noticed the bottles disappearing from the fridge."

John shrugged. "I figured Mary was trying to start bottle-feeding her. Mary probably thought that I was. One bottle's hardly noticeable when we've got so much going on."

Sherlock smiled wryly and sat down at the table, listening to the little gulping noises as Tiffany swallowed down small mouthfuls of milk. "It's okay," he said. "I don't mind."

John was quiet and Sherlock didn't look up.

A moment later, John stood up. "... Okay. Just wake me up if you need me," he said quietly.

Sherlock nodded, even though he wouldn't need him nor wake him up. "Good night," he said simply, not looking away from Tiffany.

John didn't move for a moment before he turned away. His footsteps led out of the kitchen and all was in silence again except for the familiar noise that was the addition of a new family member to Sherlock's life.

* * *

**This is such a headcanon. Sherlock breaking into John and Mary's flat in the middle of the night. I very well may write a non-baby version of it... "John...? John? There's a case." John opens his eyes to find a pale face and wildly curling hair hunched over the bed, staring at him with case-keen eyes. And then Mary wakes up and freaks because she thinks he's an intruder and then they have a long discussion about boundaries and all have a cuppa at three in the morning. ;D**

**Points of these chapters may be influenced. Storylover18 and I did a RP with John's children over a year ago now and while I'm not going back for pointers - because this is canon (well, as much as John's unborn daughter can be right now...) - it's fair to mention that some ideas may be influenced by the old RP. Just to reiterate - this is NOT a RP story! (Because I have been doing those with Scribe. :))**

**I still don't own _Sherlock_. Honestly, I'd be kind of afraid to own something like that. xD Thank you!**


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